Lessons of the Dead

By Brett Ortler

Each poem in Lessons of the Dead starts with that premise, and the results are funny, imaginative, and often strange: The road back to life is long, winding and lined with truck stops and waiting rooms, but it is also chockfull of hope and humor and beauty. By definition, the cast of characters includes almost everyone: from Adam and Eve and archangels to Houdini, Rameses II, and Death himself. Along the way, readers encounter the Titanic, the Permian-Triassic Extinction, the Heroic Age of Exploration, even the ubiquitous mall maps that say You are here. Part memento mori and part the opposite—a total embrace of life itself—Lessons of the Dead is likely different from any other poetry book you’ve ever read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fomite
• Release date: Jan 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781947917019

Book preview

Lessons of the Dead

Lessons of the Dead

Poems

Brett Orlter

Fomite

Copyright © 2019 Brett Orlter

Cover image: Stella Painted Reflectively sculpture © Barbara Zucker

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For Kayli, Oliver, and Violet

Ach, Liebste, lass uns eilen,

Wir haben Zeit

---

Oh darling, let us hurry,

we have time.

---

—Martin Opitz

What you are now we used to be;

what we are now you will be.

—placard at the Capuchin Crypt

Contents

What the Dead Tell Us About the Other World

At Orientation

What the Dead Do When They Come Back

Adam and Eve See the First Tornado

What the Dead Tell Us About Fortune Tellers, Psychics, and Mediums

What the Dead Tell Us About the Road Back to the Living

What the Dead Tell Us About February 2nd

What the Dead Do On Halloween

What the Dead Tell Us About the Expulsion from Paradise

What the Dead Tell Us About Old Age, Retirement, and Migration

What the Dead Tell Us About Those Who Come Back To Life

What the Dead Tell Us About Heaven and Hell

The City of the Lost

The Museum of the Lost

What the Dead Tell Us About Death Himself

What the Dead Tell Us About Hell

What the Dead Tell Us About Charon, Ferryman of the Dead

What the Dead Tell Us About Gambling, Bookies, and Betting in the Afterlife

When Lazarus Was Brought Back From the Dead for the Second Time

What the Dead Tell Us About Temptation

What the Dead Tell Us About War

What the Dead Tell Us About Magic

What the Dead Tell Us About the Other Side of the Tunnel

What the Dead Tell Us About Death and the Dunk Tank

What the Dead Tell Us About the Edmund Fitzgerald

What the Dead Tell Us About Transportation

What the Dead Tell Us About Deep Time

What the Dead Tell Us About the Last Voyage of Henry Hudson

What the Dead Tell Us About Cupid in Old Age

What the Dead Tell Us About the Old Gods

What the Dead Tell Us About a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off

What the Dead Tell Us About Mycology

What the Dead Tell Us About the Mayor of the Dead

What the Dead Tell Us About Exoplanets and the Problem of Evil

What the Dead Tell Us About the Titanic

What the Dead Tell Us About Dead Children Washing onto Beaches

What the Dead Tell Us About Mount St. Helen’s

What the Dead Tell Us About Paul Bunyan

What the Dead Tell Us About the Weihnachtsfrieden

What the Dead Tell Us About Mortsafes

What the Dead Tell Us About Congenital Analgesia

What the Dead Tell Us About Anatomy Murder

What the Dead Tell Us About Shadow

What the Dead Tell Us About the Pater Familias and the Last Breath

What the Dead Tell Us About Playing Dead

What the Dead Tell Us About Good Friday

What the Dead Tell Us About the Milky Way

What the Dead Tell Us About Multitasking

What the Dead Tell Us About the Lake Country

What the Dead Tell Us About The Number of People Who Have Ever Lived

What the Dead Tell Us About the Handbook to Heaven

What the Dead Tell Us About Andromeda’s Wedding

What the Dead Tell Us About Lighthouses

What the Dead Tell Us About the Path of Totality

What the Dead Tell Us About Mourning

What the Dead Tell Us